A Parental Discussion
by SuperPaperBag
Summary: Dio, Rufus, and Zero have a discussion concerning their parents and upbringing because they are bored. Written in Dio's POV. Rated M for profanity.


Dio milled about the headquarters aimlessly, wondering why the halls seemed so incredibly empty and silent that day. There was no loud complaining, screams, music emanating from Amy's room, or clashing of weapons. There was no Sieghart fast asleep on the floor, no elves coming after him and complaining that he was a menace to everything leafy and green, and no Rufus and Lass attempting to maim each other in front of everyone.

Eventually the stygian did pass another being in the long vacant hallways. Knight Master casually walked by him, clutching several documents in one hand. Dio quickly stopped her and inquired as to why no one was around.

"Today was a slow day and it's father's day, so I let whoever wanted to go back and visit home do so. There are still a few people around here," she explained. "You can go if you want; I don't care. Just stop bothering me."

"No thanks. Who else is here?"

Knight Master shrugged. "I'm not exactly sure. People keep coming and going. I know for a fact that none of you demons have left. I just assumed you all had parent issues." With that she promptly turned and kept walking down the hall.

"Cranky bitch," Dio remarked to himself. He wandered around a bit more, searching for something to alleviate his growing boredom. The stygian eventually picked up on the sound of gunshots nearby and went to investigate. He quickly located the sound as originating from Rufus' room and almost got a bullet through his neck for peering inside the aforementioned room.

"Oh, it's just you," the bounty hunter muttered, lowering his handgun. "Here's a word of advice: Don't walk in on me while I'm in the middle of target practice."

"Damn, you're so attached to those guns of yours. Compensating for something?"

Rufus went a little red in the face and quickly pointed both eyeteeth at the stygian's chest. "I wouldn't be making fun of the guy holding you at gunpoint if I were you."

"Fine asshole. I just came in here 'cause I was bored and I heard the noise." Dio turned and promptly left the room. As he had sent his butlers back home a few days ago to check up on things, there were two demons left for the stygian to speak to. The first was Ley, but at that moment the magenta-haired demon would rather eat a cactus than go talk to her. That left Zero, who didn't talk much but was at least a decent listener.

Eventually Dio located the wanderer curled up with a book in the library. Zero was seated in one armchair with his sword reposing on his lap. "Good afternoon," the wanderer greeted without looking up from his book. "You seem irritated."

"Bored," the stygian corrected him, sitting in the chair opposite the other demon. "Those humans and their holidays, right?"

"You have poor relations with your parents?"

If it had been just about anyone else asking that question, Dio likely would have elicited some biting remark and shut up. Zero, though, wouldn't make many comments or even really respond, save perhaps a few questions. For whatever reason, the stygian found it very easy to speak with the silver-haired demon. "Eh, they were good enough to me, I guess. I just never got close to them."

The wanderer remained silent. After a few moments of silence Dio decided that he might as well explain himself and continued, "My parents only really had me because they had to. My dad was starting to get older, and after this one incident where he got injured pretty badly it was enough to scare everyone into believing that he needed an heir right away. My dad recovered, but they still had me. My mom took care of me a little, but by the time I was old enough to walk she had to focus more on supporting my father, so Alfred and Sebastian were assigned to take care of me. Eventually my dad had another scare and I was forced to ascend to the throne early. I had advisors and such, but it was hard adjusting."

"…Where are your parents now?"

"Oh, they're still back home. They manage some stuff back home when I'm not around and sometimes advise me on important decisions, but other than that I don't see them very much."

"I see."

Dio then realized at some point he had started to look down at his rake hand. He quickly tilted his head back up and realized that the bounty hunter was now sitting on the nearby windowsill. "When the fuck did you get here?" he wondered aloud.

"He entered the room around two minutes after you," Zero replied.

"And you didn't tell me because…?"

"I did not wish to interrupt you."

The stygian sighed. That was the wanderer for you. He wasn't even really that annoyed—Dio should have expected something like that. "So why the hell are you here, then?" he asked Rufus.

"'I just came in here 'cause I was bored and I heard the noise' comes to mind."

"Touché, half-demon." Dio was a little bothered that the bounty hunter had heard his entire explanation, but at least Rufus hadn't made any smart comments. …Yet.

After a mere ten seconds of silence Rufus asked, "So doesn't that mean that someday you're going to have to come up with an heir?"

"Well yeah, eventually," the stygian replied, a little relieved that he hadn't been asked a more difficult question. "But I'm still young and in no rush to even get married." There was also the matter than Dio rather disliked children. Kids were whiny, stupid, needed a lot of attention, and overall just reminded him of Sebastian.

"What if you get together with a guy?" the bounty hunter asked.

"We find a surrogate. Why the fuck is this so damn interesting to you?"

Rufus shrugged. "I'm just saying that you're very into men right now. Especially considering you're hanging around Zero so much…let's just say I wouldn't be surprised if you had tried to rape him yet."

Dio scoffed and rolled his eyes in annoyance. "You're a dumbass. He's my friend, first of all. And if I was going to rape someone, I'd go for someone with actual **sex appeal**. Seriously, I'm pretty sure trying to do it with him would be like trying to do it with a board. A very stiff and emotionless board, at that." After recalled that the wanderer was, after all, the closest thing he had to a friend, the stygian added, "No offense, Zero."

The wanderer's only response was a small shrug and the turning of a page.

The magenta-haired demon decided that he was done talking about himself for one day and decided to shift the topic of conversation over to the one that had pestered him with questions. "So Rufus, what about your parents? It's only fair that you share your story since you intruded and heard mine."

"Hell no." The bounty hunter stood and began to leave the room.

Dio quickly reached out and snagged Rufus' sleeve with his rake hand. "Typical of a half-demon to pussy out," he remarked before releasing his grip.

"I just don't want to share. There's no shame in that."

"Why not? You're among demons who only kind of want to kill you."

The bounty hunter harrumphed in annoyance and stated, "Just go ask your 'friend' over there his damn back story and leave me the hell alone. It's none of your business."

"Jeez, he doesn't even have parents. That conversation wouldn't be interesting at all."

Rufus looked over at the wanderer. "No parents? Like an orphan or some shit?"

"No, I literally possess no biological parents," Zero replied calmly, continuing to read. "I was created by my master. I am an artificial being. Also, while Gran and my master raised me, I never considered them to parental figures."

"That explains…a lot, actually," the bounty hunter mused.

Dio stared accusingly at Rufus. "Well, even the guy who's likely more messed up in the head than anyone else around here just shared. If you want to keep any pride, you might as well just tell your story now…"

"Fine," the bounty hunter groaned, reluctantly seating himself back down near the window. "Let's see…my dad was a demon who met my human mother on some bounty mission…"

The stygian could already tell how the story was going to end. While demon and human relationships were by no means illegal, they almost never ended very well.

"…they got together and ended up settling down in our dimension. I heard that people had trouble accepting my mom being a human and all at first, but she was hard-working and eventually she kind of fit in. Eventually they had me. After that, though, things started going downhill. They just started drifting apart; I really started seeing it when I was a toddler. Later my parents just agreed to split up and I later heard that my mom had gone back to her home dimension, settled down with a nice human guy, and had another kid. My dad never remarried. He was pretty good to me, albeit a bit strict and not that great a parent. He never stopped thinking about mom, though, even though they agreed to cut off all connections with each other after Lass was born. When I was deemed old enough to take care of myself he went off to look for her. I lived by myself—well not really because the clan supported me—for a few years before deciding to go find him. When I met with Lass I figured out that he still hasn't found my mother. He was one of the best bounty hunters that ever lived, yet he couldn't find his own ex-wife. Go figure," Rufus explicated. After finishing speaking he looked over and Dio and asked, "Well, since we're going around, we might as well hear Ley's, too. Since I doubt that any of us actually want to speak with that bitch, care to tell us what you know?"

Dio sat back and recalled everything he knew about the summoner's parents. "I don't know that much," he admitted. "I know that her dad's a great leader and a really smart guy. I've never met her mother, but considering how her father behaves I'm guessing Ley inherited her bitchiness from her mom."

A short silence ensued. After around thirty minutes Rufus remarked, "Well, that kept us occupied for about an hour. What now?"

The stygian was already bored again, as well. "Should we just fight each other for no discernible reason and blame the damage on the first unlucky little bitch that walks by?" he suggested.

The bounty hunter reached for his handguns. "Sounds good to me."

"And you, Zero?"

The wanderer calmly shut his book, announced, "I would prefer not to participate in pointless destruction" and left the room.

"What a weird guy. He acts less like a demon than I do," Rufus commented, standing while keeping his weapons pointed at the stygian.

"Weird, but a good enough demon," Dio replied, summoning his scythe. "I can't believe you thought I'd actually go for a guy like him, though."

"Well, you're kind of a whore."

"Says the guy with his neckline so low I could've mistaken his shirt for one of Ley's."

"At least I'm wearing an actual shirt, slut."

"I'd rather be a slut than a virgin like you."

Ultimately half of the library was completely destroyed in the pointless fracas, and both fighters ended up spending the rest of their day recovering from serious wounds. Zero ultimately ended up cleaning up the destruction—not because he had been blamed for the fight, but rather because no one except him and perhaps two others even cared about the demolished library to begin with.

Overall, Dio found it to be a fairly decent day.

* * *

Author's Notes:

-Don't take this fic seriously. I only wrote it because I needed to get back into writing again, and I wanted to write something humorous in an attempt to get over the destruction of my confidence.

-Not sure if something like Father's Day actually exists in Aernas. For the purposes of this story, though, it does. That day must suck for Elesis, though, considering the situation with her father.

-Not sure if cacti exist in Aernas either.

-This is a lot of Dio because apparently he's one of the few things people like in my work.

-I know for a fact that Rufus' back story in this is incorrect. I specifically had to change it because I claimed that Rufus was a half-demon instead of a full demon. For the record, I do know that Rufus' actual back story involves the father going off and getting remarried to a human to produce Lass.

-Dio's part is completely and utterly made up. I have no idea who his actual parents were, how he was born, etc.

-Zero's barely in this for some reason, and Gran has no lines. I think this was because I didn't want to revisit my past failure.

-Lame ending is lame.

-This fic was intended to come out on Father's Day, but it ended up being late.

-Thanks to my readers.

-I'm reluctant to write another fanfiction. I think I've said everything I wanted to say about how I portray the characters, I've basically run out of ideas, and my confidence went down the drain. I'm especially hesitant to post this fic or anything in the next week or so because my friend (who usually reads over my work first) is currently on vacation and I am unable to contact her. Who knows when or if I'll be posting another story.


End file.
